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What makes a great logo?

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A great logo can provide your company with a boost but actually visualising an image that embodies your company and projects what you stand for isn’t easy. Creating it is even harder so this article seeks to help you understand what you need to consider during the logo design phase.

The five main principles of design are: simplicity, memorability, adaptability, uniqueness and colour scheme. When your logo is being designed make a checklist of these five things to measure how viable and appropriate your logo will be.

Simplicity and memorability

Great logos are memorable and easy to describe. Ask the next person you see to describe, not draw, these logos including the colour scheme: McDonald’s, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Nike, Adidas, Qantas and Vegemite. They’ll pretty much describe them to a T because those logos are simple and memorable.

Iconic brands like Starbucks are the exception to this which proves not all logos have to be overly simple but the easier your logo is to describe out loud the more eye-catching it will be in actuality.

Adaptability

Logos needs to be versatile so when designing a logo consider all of the mediums it will feature in. Detailed logos can lose a lot of its effectiveness when shrunk as they can if the colour is changed. Your logo is going to look different on a billboard than it will on a computer screen, in a magazine, on a business card or company stationary.

Uniqueness

They say there is nothing new under the sun but that isn’t an excuse for not even trying for some innovation. Copying logos or even taking heavy inspiration from a popular design isn’t a great idea as you risk looking cheap or being sued for plagiarism. Anyway, you want your logo to be about you, not a knocked off version of someone else.

Colour scheme

For branding experts it’s possible to identify patterns in logo colours that fit certain feelings and how they play a part in purchasing decisions and brand association. A study undertaken by the University of Winnipeg, Canada, found that almost 9 in 10 initial reactions to products and logos could be linked back to the colour.

The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science also found that purchasing decisions can be affected by how colours manipulate and influence brand perception.

Colours are considered to be indicators of the personality of a brand. There are 8 main colour schemes that companies use to convey their personality or message: monochrome, green, blue, purple, red, orange, yellow and combination.

What do the colours say?

Monochrome is favoured by companies like Apple, Nike, Mercedes, Adidas and Playboy. It is said to project balance, calmness, neutrality, sophistication and aspiration, especially with high-end products like you find with Apple and Mercedes.

Green is used for health, nature, peacefulness and growth. You’ll see it with brands like Land Rover who market their cars to rural consumers; food businesses like Tropicana and Whole Foods to enhance their healthy living credentials and Starbucks to imply fresh, natural ingredients.

Tech companies like Intel, Dell, IBM, HP, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress use blue to highlight their trustworthiness, dependability, competence and strength. It’s also favoured by conglomerates, popular car manufacturers and financial providers like American Express, JPMorgan, Ford, VW, GE and Walmart because they want to be seen as reliable and consistent.

Food and drink brands like Coca-Cola, KFC and Budweiser, who appeal to under-25s more, employ red as it is considered an exciting, bold, youthful colour. It also plays well with new technology like video-streaming on Netflix or YouTube.

Purple implies creativity, imagination and wisdom – perhaps that is why wizards are so often pictured wearing purple robes – but it also blend elements from blue and red. Cadbury’s is an example of this as it wants to be seen as exciting yet dependable whilst Hallmark wants to be seen as trustworthy and creative.

Companies who want to exude confidence and cheerfulness opt for Orange. Orange works well with children and is favoured by Fanta and Nickelodeon. It is also used as an accent by companies like Harley Davidson and Amazon.

Yellow exhibits optimism, clarity and warmth. McDonald’s, IKEA and Best Buy are all about clarity. You know exactly what you are going to get with them. SubWay is dominated by yellow for clarity but they also accent with green for the healthy food aspect and white for balance.

Combination has to be done really well because it’s easy to confuse your audience – notice how the main brands who use combination are technology/internet giants like Google, Microsoft and eBay.

Get designing

When it comes to matching your brand personality to a colour scheme, remember that there is no evidence to suggest one colour will be more compelling than another. How your logo interacts with the colours is more important that the colours itself. The relationship between colour and brand is steeped in the perception of appropriateness and therefore your logo could be completely transformed with a colour change.

The feeling your logo creates will play a huge role in the perception of your brand and the strength of its persuasion. For that reason you must ensure that first your brand is simple, memorable, adaptable and unique before settling on a colour scheme. Think about your company’s core values, aims, strengths and achievements. This is what your company is made of and should be the factors that shape your logo.

We recently updated our logo to reflect the growth of our business and have had amazing feedback both from our business partners and customers. If you’re looking for assistance in this arena, you can learn more about here design services here. If you’d like to discuss what you’re after in a new logo, you can also contact us and we’d be thrilled to help.

 

 

When Is a Good Time to Rebrand

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The decision to re-brand your business is a big one. A lengthy process that can sometimes cost a bit of coin, and it’s certainly a decision not to be taken lightly. However, if done for the right reasons and at the right time, a rebrand can be a great investment to the immediate and future growth of your business.

Done for the wrong reasons and at the wrong the time it can not only be a costly mistake but a PR disaster.  A recent example, one we can all learn from was by a household name, with a product we all grew up with and loved. Arnott’s rebranded their famous Shapes biscuit ‘updating’ some of their renowned flavours in the process. Australia went into meltdown. It’s possible we’re still in the midst of this meltdown as the benefits of this change have yet to be seen or understood.

Another famous example on the worldwide stage was when Coca-Cola made an attempt to re-brand their product to appeal to younger consumers in 1985. A strong consumer backlash forced the company to bring back the original “Coco-Cola classic” a mere three months later.

Evolving

If your business has evolved since opening its doors, it’s possible that the logo and brand you started with is no longer consistent with your current message or offering. It’s good practice to have a brand that consistently reflects your business’s message. New direction is the primary reason for re-branding.

Moving or Expanding

Moving your business or expanding geographically? If your branding includes geographic information or contains messages or meanings that only apply to one area, re-branding to appeal to the new location will be required.

Updating

Has the market or trends within your industry changed considerably? Has your brand become outdated as a result? Your brand reflects your business and is directly responsible for prospective client’s perception of you. An outdated and dull brand will not appeal to new customers- especially if you’re a company that sells these sort of services. It’s important not to get this confused with you feeling bored with your current branding – which can happen to the best of us.

While it is totally normal for any business owner to want to shake things up, it’s vital to recognise that this isn’t a good enough reason to re-brand, at least not on it’s own. If however you’re considering updating due to an outdated logo or niche a complete change may not be needed. A simple refresh may be enough.

Appealing to New Audiences

If you’re wanting to appeal or attract a new audience, then this is a solid enough reason for rebranding and one of the most popular. If you want to break into a new demographic, updating your brand to reflect their behaviours, likes and interests can position your business favourably. It is important to make a well-informed decision backed by research if considering this. Using an experienced agency to assist with re-branding is beneficial beyond the obvious design reasons. An agency familiar with branding will have years of knowledge and tested and tried experiences behind their expertise.

Merging or Acquiring

Another reason you may be considering a rebrand is if your business is merging with another or you are you acquiring a new one? Updating the brand to reflect the new dynamic not only creates and helps keep the brand consistent with offerings and message but it can also be a great marketing and PR strategy. Just be careful not to alienate existing loyal customers.

It’s not only important to get the timing and the reasons for re-branding right but to also make sure it’s done with longevity in mind. We can’t stress how important it is for a brand to remain consistent, solid and trustworthy in the eyes of consumers – no matter what type of business you’re in.

When considering rebranding you need to consider all elements of your business’s marketing platforms. With website and digital being a strong player in today’s business environment it’s important that a brand presents well in a digital environment as well as on traditional promotional material.

Get Expert Advice

Rebranding can be an expensive exercise and even more expensive if it isn’t done right. It’s a good idea (and a good investment) to get advice from a team who know and understand the branding process.

We recently re-branded our business to reflect the growth of our business and have had glowing feedback from many of our partners and customers. Digital is an important part of a re-brand strategy, contact us today to discuss how we can help.

Looking for Creativity & Inspiration in One? Try Canva!

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In an ever-changing online world Google and everyone you know is content hungry! And you can’t just share a nice written article anymore; you need to make it beautiful with creative design and imagery.

If it’s that important to Google and your users, shouldn’t there be something that doesn’t require a degree in rocket science to use?

Enter Canva

For those who have never used this kind of thing before, it has its own very simple training modules that you simply click the ‘Design School’ button up the top to find easy, step-by-step instructions.

And if you still need some extra love and care, click on ‘Hint’ at the bottom left of the module to be taken to video that demonstrates exactly what to do. The best part is that each one loads and plays through so quickly so there is no chance to forget what it is you have to do. Once you grasp the simple basics it is very easy to make an amazing infographic, poster or whatever else you need.

One of the best features of the software is the ability to drag and drop to insert your choice of image or text box into your poster or whatever it is you are working on. What’s even cooler, is even if you you have the whole thing finished and you decide you don’t like that background after all, it’s so easy to change!

And maybe the coolest, you can use one of the thousands of free images provided or your own image that you have uploaded. No need to pay loads for istock images or your own photographer!

Melanie Perkins

This software is easy to use because it was designed by a graphic design university teacher for her students who found it difficult to understand other software – like most of us. Melanie Perkins is an inspiration to all of us. From simply wanting to help her students design their university yearbooks more easily, she has become the CEO of one of the fastest growing companies in Australia. Of course, such things don’t happen in a vacuum and she did have help, but she has certainly put in the hard work and the hours to create her dream.

The Canva Story

It took seven years to get her dream up and running and in that time she worked hard and kept her focus on her business plan instead of diverging like many young companies do. It is this single minded focus teamed with patience and care in choosing just the right person for the third helper that has helped to make her company so successful. And now it is up and running, expansion is on the way with Canva for Business almost ready to go.

Inspiration

Learning about what Melanie has done should inspire all those who have a goal of any kind to not be afraid of hard work and long hours if it means success in the end. Her journey also teaches us the importance of having patience and in choosing wise and knowledgeable people to help us along the way.

Freshen Up Your Marketing Mix – Go Offline!

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We were recently invited to an American Chamber of Commerce lunch in Brisbane on behalf of our Adelaide Plains customer Dominic Versace Wines and it was a terrific example of how to efficiently bring your brand to a national audience.

Dominic Versace Wines is in growth mode, appealing to the growing Chinese taste for high quality wine with an excellent, award-winning brand reputation.

Amcham (as the Chamber calls itself) is an extremely well connected group, the room was filled with QLD CEOs and major consulting, banking and law firm representation. Queensland is in growth mode too, trying to appeal to the growing Chinese appetite for authentic tourism experiences.

Having their wine on each table and a great plug by Robyn Houghton from AmCham gave Dominic Versace Wines direct access to people who can help them expand their business and drive some offline relationships online.

We have been eagerly supporting the growth of Dominic Versace Wines because they continue to think outside the promotional box.

Consider the opportunity to relaunch your marketing strategy along with a new website, there is so much to the mix.

Three Steps to Feeling Less Intimidated by Website Design

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We all need a little care and contemplation every once in a while to get the best out of ourselves and website design is no different. In a website build or revamp project it really is the most important part of the process and most people feel intimidated from the start. Never fear – these 3 easy steps will help you feel a whole lot more in control and confident in what you can achieve.

Step One – What You Want to Feature?

There are those normal things like About Us, Products and/Services Lists and Contact Forms that all sites generally have and they are important too. But when your customers (current and future) load your website what are the couple of things that you really want to impress upon them? What is your unique sales proposition, what makes you stand out? Is it your extensive product range or maybe your expert skill in your particular area. Whatever it is, it matters when it comes to the site design.

Step Two – What Do You Want People to Do?

If we use the storefront comparison, if customers have physically entered your store and are showing signs of interest, what would you want them to do? This is easy to track when you are looking at someone face to face, and its easy to track online too with Google Analytics by figuring out how long people are spending on your website and what pages they are looking at, but I digress.

What do you want them to do? Buy straight away, call you to discuss how you can help, send an email to request an appointment or reservation? What you can encourage your customers to do on your website is virtually unlimited, but keep it simple and know what you want to them to do so that the site design encourages that.

Step Three – Find Existing Websites That Do These Things Well

Ultimately you can’t go wrong by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, so find the sites they like, and the ones you do too and then share all of this information with your designer. And be specific about those things because no site is going to do everything exactly like you would so don’t be afraid to mention likes and dislikes about those examples.

The Internet is framed around being able to gain information and engage in transactions quickly, therefore following the above three steps with this principle in mind means you will be in the driver’s seat of your website build. Empowered and dare we say it, feeling a little excited too!

Interested in sharing your design dreams with us? Give us a call or click here for more information.